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Technical problems
On ship design I can only see half the modeling screen Quarterly reports won't show In Gal Civ II Twilight of the Arnor the quarterly reports won't show even if they are activated in the options. Every 12th turn the screen is flickering once though, as if the quarterly reports are being shown and automatically closed immediately. I'm using Windows 7 and a NVIDIA Quadro 2000M graphics card. I am playing the German version of the game (Ultimate Edition). Another issue that might be related is that the Gal Civ II launcher which allows to chose which Gal Civ II edition you want to start does not work (I start the game directly via Windows explorer). When I start its symbol appears in the task bar but the launcher won't start. This wasn't the case before I updated the game to the most recent version. The launcher worked then (don't know about the quarterly reports though). Every time I try to start a new game, the game crashes. It goes through the set up phase fine, but after I select a race and start the game, it crashes a few seconds into the loading screen. It hasn't generated an error message, so I don't know what to do. Answer: it can be a problem with in-game language. Please check this topic on GalCiv2 forums: http://forums.galciv2.com/429044/page/1/#3325459. It worked for me. AI doing nothing After playing Gal Civ II Dark Avatar for about a week now with only some crashes to the desktop once in a while I have a major game stopping bug now: The AI just seems to do nothing when I play. It doesn't expand or research or anything else. It just moves around the one or two ships it has. Difficulty settings don't change a thing. On some new games the AI is working, on others it isn't. I'm running the latest updates (1.61.090) and the latest drivers. : On the lowest difficulty setting that's what AI does. Start a game on "normal" difficulty for a slightly crippled AI, or on "tough" for full AI without bonuses. : As stated above changing difficulty does not help. The AI continues to ignore everything. This is definitely a bug. Production drops to zero after loading save game Whenever I load a save game, everyone's production drops to zero for one turn—no research occurs, no ships build, nothing. It's like the between-turn stuff is just skipped and we go back to another ship-moving phase. (It's easy to tell how many times I've saved the game because if you look at the production chart, everyone's line goes to zero for one point and then back up.) This is GCII 1.2, during the Campaign missions Crash when loading auto-save during 'skip' phase I was in a submenu and accidentally pressed end turn instead of done when I wanted to leave. (BTW: Can you please take out the End Turn button from the submenus? I've lost more turns than I can count to pressing End Turn when I wanted Done. They're right next to each other.) So, I got out of the submenu and saw that it was on the "skip" phase of the turn—where it asks you about ships you didn't finish moving and whether you want to skip their movement or move them. This was an important turn, I couldn't affort to miss it, so I just loaded up the autosave instead. Well, then the "End Turn" button just got stuck on "Skip". Even though the autosave should have been at the beginning of the turn, it said "Skip". Pressing the "Skip" button did nothing. Eventually, when I couldn't figure out what else to do, I tried to go back to the main menu (or maybe it was quit?) and then the game crashed. GII 1.2, during a campaign mission (#6). Sent a Windows Error Report. Saving/Loading (?) Race Glitch Whenever I save my races or load them (I am not sure where they are getting messed up, just that they are messed up) they lose all diplomacy bonuses and gain social production, military production and sometimes logistics (though no stat appears for the last). This sometimes pushes them into – points (I had -4 stat points once). How can I fix this? How can I archive and move my game to another PC? If you'd like to install one of your TotalGaming.net games to another computer that isn't connected to the Internet, you may do so via the following: Launch Stardock Central. Select the title you want to move from the Games listing. Right click on it, and drill down to "Archive Application". Archive all parts of the app. These archives are in the SDCentral/Backup directory. Take a copy of StarDock Central's install program (to install SDC on the new computer), and the archives you just made, to the new computer. Install SDC, copy the archives into the SDCentral/Backup directory, start SDC. Hit CTRL+R, right-click on each archive, and choose "Restore". Wait until they're all restored to the new machine. During this process you may be asked to activate the software. Do so by entering the information requested. If you can't connect to the net at all from the new machine, you'll have to do this step via pen and paper (to record info for stardock), and email using some other computer. Another method, which may or may not work, is to zip up the game's directory, and just copy it over to the new one. You'll probably still need to us Online Activation for the new machine. I heard the retail boxed version of Galactic Civilizations II has no copy protection. Is this true? Yes. The retail version has no copy protection whatesover. You don't even have to enter in the serial number if you don't want during the install. You will need the serial number to get updates. I don't want to use Stardock Central to get updates for Galactic Civilizations II. Do I have to use it? No. You will also be able to get updates via the website using the traditional "patch" method other games use. You will still need your serial number though. Yes you do. This must be very old info. Any patchs must be downloaded through impulse now. Believe me I tried to get around this, but other than pariate copies (I have legitimate copy) that come with the latest patches. My anti-virus program says the Galactic Civilizations II installer contains malicious scripts The installation autorun and the shortcut on Windows XP use Stardock's DesktopX Pro and the Windows Scripting Host support that comes with Windows to provide a custom interface for installing and launching the game. This is sometimes incorrectly detected as a malicious script. Movies and cut scenes in Galactic Civilizations II stutter. How can I fix this? 1) If you experience stuttering with the movies (especially with older or integrated video chipsets), go under the Options menu and turn down the Anti-Aliasing setting to 2x or 0 (the default is 4x). 2) After turning down AA, I still have stuttering? Try running the tutorial in Fullscreen mode. Click the little checkbox in the lower-left section of the tutorial screen. This allows my tutorials to run as well "in-game" as outside (in RAD Video Tools). The tutorial will explode to full-screen, but you can press ESC to quit. What is the minimum amount of memory my video card must have for Galactic Civilizations II? If your video card has less than 32MB of memory, the game will probably not run at all. Does my video card have to support DirectX for Galactic Civilizations II? This game requires video cards that support DirectX 9.0c or later. It is required for the TrueType font support that this game uses. Some older Intel Extreme graphics adapters do not support this. The mouse cursor flickers when I play Galactic Civilizations II. How can I fix this? Most video cards capable of running the game should support a software mouse cursor (the default). If you experience flickering or information in your debug.err about lack of support for a color cursor, please toggle the option on the Video settings page for a hardware cursor. My ships and textures aren't as detailed as I see in screenshots. Why not? Lower-end video cards (e.g. GeForce 4 MX 420's) will run the game, but lack the texture and shader support for all the graphical effects. Your ships and planets will lack the detail you might see in screenshots elsewhere. ---- For anyone with a low-end card who would like to get better texture and shaders, you can try out 3D Analyze. This program does software emulation of missing or unsupported video card features. The person who originally posted about this utility recommended checking all the options in the Hardware Limits (caps bits) except emulate Other DX8.1 caps. If anyone finds other useful options, please update the Wiki. I have a 4-year-old Toshiba laptop with a Geforce4 440 go 32MB and I can vouch that this utility does work and has not noticeably affected my performance. Can I run Galactic Civilizations II at 16-bit screen resolution? No. Your desktop should be set to 24-bit or 32-bit color depth. I got an error running Galactic Civilizations II. Is there an error log somewhere? If you do run into an issue, check the debug.err (text) file in the Galactic Civilizations II game folder (older game vesions) or in MyDocuments\My Games\GalCiv2 folder (newer game versions). It will likely provide useful information for diagnosing the problem. Please submit this to support@stardock.com Stardock Central (SDC) gives me a URL error when trying to download tutorials, movies and multimedia. Why? Chances are you're running Stardock Central 2.24ab... this version may report URL errors or the inability to download additional content (game executables, tutorials, movies, multimedia, etc.). Please use the link in your serial email to reinstall. I have an AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core and some of the graphics in Galactic Civilizations II jitter and/or spin too quickly. Some people with Dual Core machines may notice models spinning too quickly or jitters. Here's a driver update that may solve the problem. (Broken Link - Useless). Other links that may be relevant: * http://support.microsoft.com/?id=896256 * http://blogs.msdn.com/tparks/archive/2005/05/14/417516.aspx * http://forums.seriouszone.com/showpost.php?p=688033&postcount=139 * http://www.hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=983781 I get an activation error Remove the sig.bin file from your GalCiv2 directory. Start Stardock Central, Games section, right-click on the GalCiv2 item and select the Activate w/logging option. That should sort it. If it doesn't, please email the activate.log file from the sdcentral directory to support@stardock.com for further assistance. If you have restored a backup or archive from another computer or reinstall Windows, you will need to let Stardock Central reactivate it. I'm having a problem activating Galactic Civilizations II online. Can I activate offline or another way? Yes. For activation trouble or activation for an offline system, please follow this guide: If you are using an online computer, complete steps prefixed by A If you are using an offline computer, complete steps prefixed by B A - Disable your internet connection AB - Open up the application (to get it to attempt activation) on the system you would like to install to. AB - Enter your email and Product/Object Desktop serial * (If you see the cursor, |, you should be able to paste information using Ctrl+V) AB - The activation will fail because it cannot contact the server. AB - Click "Yes" (You would like to activate by email) AB - Click "Yes" (You purchased your software from Stardock) A - Re-enable your internet connection B - Take all of the information to an online system. AB - Copy the subject and body and paste it into the appropriate fields of an email activate@stardock.com. You will recieve further instructions from there. Please ensure you use the correct serial number when activating. Your serial number should consist of a 28-digit alphanumeric string. Your registration information may be retrieved automatically via email by entering your email address here. The tutorials are jittery / stutter in Galactic Civilizations II. How can I fix this? The video tutorials may stutter on some (but not all) older video cards. This is due to alpha blending. You can turn off anti-aliasing in the Video options, but that may not fully solve it. You may also want to update your graphics drivers. Galactic Civilizations II has no sound or music. Why? Sound and music files are available as a separate download via Stardock Central.Open Stardock Central, located Galactic Civilizations II then click on the + to the left of it. This will drop down a menu of additional items including Multimedia and Movies. What is the minimum resolution my monitor must support for Galactic Civilizations II? Your monitor must support a minimum resolution of 1024x768. You must also have a desktop resolution of 1024x768 running at 24 or 32-bit color depth. You will probably experience problem with the game or it's media (movies, tutorials, etc.) if your resolution and color depth are lower than this. Inability to run on hp pavilion zv5000.... Inability to run on hp pavilion zv5000. even after attempting to download the latest driver from ATI. The ATI driver won't install properly. How do I get it to run on the hp pavilion zv5000? Crash to Desktop after installing a new program It seems that Galactic Civilizations 2 wants to be the last program you install. if I install a different game after it and then try to play GC2, it throws a big sulk and crashes to desktop after loading the Main Menu. I even bought/installed a new copy, and it still went to pout in the corner. Is there a fix for that? Category:Support